October 28, 2008
Peoria, AZ
The “Dog Whisperer” corrects people when they say “Dogs are people, too”, but we can’t argue that they’re not “family”. We’ve had a week of emotional ups and downs with Merlin, and we’re not out of the woods yet, by a long shot.
We had him back at the vet on Wednesday for another cortical steroid shot, and he was better (not well, just better) on Thursday. Unfortunately, on Friday he was weaker and his fever continued to go up and down, so it was back to the vet in the afternoon. They felt that he needed special care (IV, antibiotics), so he went back to the emergency animal clinic, which is open 24 hours a day.
By Saturday, he was much worse, with some swelling on his eye and hind leg, and x-rays that showed (poorly, since they’re very murky and two dimensional) all sorts of potential issues (enlarged aorta, liver and kidney shadows, possible abdominal mass, yikes!). The clinic arranged for a mobile internal specialist to come in for an ultrasound, which showed his heart and aorta to be OK, no abdominal mass (just funny-shaped stomach, pancreas and spleen), small kidney stones (not likely to be causing his symptoms) and some “nodules” (what the heck is a “nodule anyway?) in the liver. They wanted to do more blood tests and maybe a liver biopsy on Monday or Tuesday. We directed them to proceed with the biopsy while the internist was already there, rather than wait for more tests. We’re hoping to get the blood and biopsy test results back today, but nobody’s guaranteeing anything.
After spending the weekend at the clinic, vet-to-vet consultation recommended that we take him to yet another specialist about 30 miles away in Scottsdale, so we brought him over there in the morning. The new specialist recommended that they keep him overnight – again – for IV and monitoring pending the test results. They just called with the morning update, which is that he’s somewhere between stable and better (walking – still wobbling – more, in-office blood tests better, showing signs of wanting to drink, but suffering a little nausea), and that they’ll continue to monitor him until the afternoon. We’ll have a check-in call around 2:00 PM. That’s where we stand right now; we hope the test results show up.
Sorry for the “blow by blow” on Merlin, but not much else has been going on. We don’t want to start anything complicated because we don’t know when we’ll need to do something or go somewhere with Merlin, and the whole process can be distracting. I need to install the water filter/softener and bypass, but I’m worried about interruptions or mistakes once I turn off the water and start cutting pipes.
The only other thing going on is that Geri’s dental implant work is proceeding well. As previously reported, the first two teeth were completed a couple of weeks ago and she’s adjusting well with no problems. We’re at the periodontist this morning to start the process of getting the second set installed. This dentist is the one that installed the implant screws in the jaw, and he’s got to verify proper healing and make sure that the gum tissue hasn’t grown over the implant base. Since they want the gum to cover the implant for ones in the upper jaw, he’ll be cutting that back today. It needs a month to heal, and then the prostodontist can take impressions and have the teeth fabricated and fitted, a process that’ll take from early-December to late-January. It’s usually a 6-week schedule, but we have some delays built in due to the holidays.
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